http://informahealthcare.com/ahb ISSN: 0301-4460 (print), 1464-5033 (electronic) Ann Hum Biol, Early Online: 1–6 ! 2014 Informa UK Ltd. DOI: 10.3109/03014460.2014.943286 RESEARCH PAPER Pedometer determined physical activity and obesity prevalence of Greek children aged 4–6 years Antonis Kambas 1 , Fotini Venetsanou 2 , Alexandra Avloniti 1 , Dimitra M. Giannakidou 1 , Vassilios Gourgoulis 1 , Dimitrios Draganidis 1 , Athanasios Chatzinikolaou 1 , Ioannis Fatouros 1 , and Maria Michalopoulou 1 1 School of Physical Education and Sport Science, Democritus University of Thrace, Komotini, Greece and 2 Faculty of Physical Education and Sport Science, National and Kapodestrian University of Athens, Dafni, Greece Abstract Background: Pre-school age is important for developing healthy attitudes towards physical activity (PA). However, research on pre-schoolers’ pedometer-determined PA is limited. Aim: To describe pre-schoolers’ ambulatory activity; investigate step count differences in respect to Body Mass Index (BMI) categories and examine the prevalence of obesity. Subjects and methods: Pre-school aged children (n ¼ 250; 5.5 ± 0.4 years) from Komotini (Greece) wore Omron HJ-720IT-E2 pedometers for 10 consecutive days. Height and weight were measured and BMI was calculated. Results: Three-way repeated measures ANOVAs revealed that children performed more steps on weekdays than during weekends (p50.001) and during leisure time than school (p50.001). Significant differences appeared between normal and obese children’s counts on weekdays (p50.001), weekend days (p50.05), during school (p50.001), after school (p50.005) and in weekly steps (p50.005). No gender differences were detected. Moreover, according to a sample t-test analysis, children’s daily steps were significantly different from the 10 000 steps/ day guideline, while obesity prevalence was 15.6%. Conclusion: School-based ambulatory activity is lower than after school ambulatory activity, independent of BMI-category and gender, although obese children demonstrated fewer steps. Taking into account the high rate of both the obesity prevalence and children not meeting the 10 000 steps/day guideline, the need for preventive policies becomes obvious. Keywords Leisure-time, obesity, Omron HJ-720IT-E2, preschoolers, school-time History Received 18 March 2014 Revised 24 June 2014 Accepted 30 June 2014 Published online 21 August 2014 Introduction The benefits of children’s physical activity (PA) participation are indisputable (Strong et al., 2005) and the importance of an effective PA-promotion intervention among youth for long-term health effects has been recognized (Van Beurden et al., 2003). Increased PA is associated with a reduction of the risk of developing cardiovascular disease (Vuori, 2010) and obesity (Hills & Byrne, 2006) and improves mental health of adolescents (Kantomaa et al., 2008). However, today’s young children are less physically active than recommended (Jackson et al., 2003; Pate et al., 2008) and more prone to chronic health problems such as cardiovascular disease and obesity (Boreham et al., 2004; Cohen, 2004; Mikkila et al., 2004). It is very important for young children to exhibit high PA levels because these behaviours seem to continue throughout childhood (Pate et al., 1996). Therefore, the promotion of habitual PA for children is a priority for many countries. For this reason, monitoring children’s PA is an important goal for public health purposes (Cavill et al., 2001) and the need for a suitable PA measurement during early childhood is high- lighted. Walking is a main ‘‘feature of utilitarian daily PA and any assessment of PA should be sensitive to walking in all its forms’’ (Tudor-Locke et al., 2004a, p. 1567). Step-counting pedometers are inexpensive, objective, reliable and valid instruments for assessing children’s PA (Hands et al., 2006; Pate et al., 2010; Tudor-Locke et al., 2004c). Many studies have reported daily step counts in children (Abbot et al., 2009; Cardon & De Bourdeaudhuij, 2007; Tanaka & Tanaka, 2009); however, there is still some debate about children’s step count differences between weekdays and weekends (Loucaides et al., 2003; Oliver et al., 2006) or during school and after school periods (Belton et al., 2010; Cox et al., 2006; Vincent & Pangrazi, 2002). Recently, Tudor-Locke et al. (2011) provided steps/day standards for the minimum recommendation of 60 minutes of moderate-to-vigorous PA (MVPA) for pre- school children, ranging between 10 000–14 000 steps/day and suggested that pre-schooler’s step patterns are similar for boys and girls of 4–6 years. Also Gabel et al. (2013) suggest that a count of 6000 steps/day should be the target for 3–5 year-old children in order to meet the new Canadian PA recommenda- tions for the early years (Tremblay et al., 2012). However, this Correspondence: Antonis Kambas, PhD, Associate Professor, Democritus University of Thrace, School of Physical Education and Sport Science, TEFAA-DUTH, University Campus, 69100 Komotini, Greece. Tel: +302531039643. Fax: +302531039623. E-mail: akampas@phyed.duth.gr Ann Hum Biol Downloaded from informahealthcare.com by 213.249.12.134 on 08/26/14 For personal use only.